the reason is you look at what boehner said. boehner was for a deal last year. we have to figure out what does eric cantor think, what does michele bachmann think, what does rand paul think? john bainer is the leader of the republican party in name, but he often is not leading them in policy. unless we know obama $1 trillion in tax increases, i'm not sure that rush limbaugh is for that right now. until we know that other conservatives outside of john boehner support that idea, it's hard to see where the compromise is. so i think i'm not optimistic either about where we are right now. >> just to jump in, i would echo that. sometimes we analyze these guys like boehner is the ceo. and that may be the case, but he has a board of directors. he's got other stakeholders to deal with. and we've got to see some movement from them if that bipartisanship that you were talking about in the beginning, mara, if that's going to go anywhere. >> i'm sorry, go ahead. >> i would just point out there was real skepticism about whether boehner could deliver a deal with the debt ceili